Now, as we have discussed the kiss and its importance as the direct expression of love and erotic emotions, we will pass over to certain more special aspects of its nature. In the very first place, then, we have the quantitative conditions. It is a matter of common knowledge that lovers are liberal in the extreme in the question of kisses, which are given and taken to infinity, and these have likewise continually the same intoxicating freshness as at the first meeting. Everything in love is, you know, a reiteration, and yet love is a perpetual renewing. How inspiriting are the words of Tove to King Waldemar, as J. P. Jacobsen gives them: And now I say for the first time: “King Volmer, I love thee,” And kiss thee now for the first time, And fling mine arms round thee; But should you say I’ve said this before, And you to kisses are fain, Then say I: “King, he’s but a fool Who minds such trifles vain.” W. F. H. What has a love kiss to do with the law of renewal? That one does not arrive at anything by _one_ kiss is expressed with sufficient plainness in an Istro-Roumanian proverb: _Cu un trat busni nu se afla muliere_ (with a single kiss no woman is caught). This maxim holds good besides in the case of both men and women. But how many kisses are necessary then? There is a little Greek folk-song called “All good things are three.” It runs as follows: Your first kiss brought me near to the grave, Your second kiss came my life to save; But if a third kiss you’ll bestow, Not even death can bring me woe. W. F. H. But, nevertheless, we may assume without a shadow of a doubt that he was not satisfied with these three kisses--lovers are not wont to be so easily contented. The Spaniards and many other nations besides say of lovers that “they eat each other up with kisses;” but more than three are certainly required for that purpose: Take this kiss and a thousand more, my darling, W. F. H. sings Aarestrup, but Catullus outbids him, however, in one of his songs to Lesbia: A thousand kisses; add five score: Another thousand kisses more; Then best forget them all, Lest any wight with evil eye Our too close counting might espy, And dire mishap befall.[7] W. F. H. As we see, Catullus’ love has no trifling start over Aarestrup’s, and so a later poet seems likewise to think that even his demands are quite ridiculously small. “Nay,” says Joachim du Bellay to his Columbelle, “give me as many kisses as there are flowers on the mead, seeds on the field, and grapes in the vineyards, and so that you shall not deem me ungrateful, I will immediately give you as many again.” Du Bellay, moreover, bitterly upbraids the poet of Verona for asking for so few kisses that they can, when taken together, be counted: